My best friend is going to spend next summer sailing, so we decided to spend winter break on vacation together instead of next summer. This was again going to be a challenge weather-wise, but in the opposite way of the summer.

My mom took me to MEC (now Canadian-owned again!) and they had the exact kind of sweater I had been looking for – black, full-length front zipper, no hood, pockets – to replace the Norwegian-style knit sweater I’d used until it wore holes in both elbows, so I bought that, and my mom bought me a puffy down vest identical to one that she wears every day. I also bought reusable chemical hand warmers on a different trip.

And I got me some new hiking boots, because someone else on the Internet was like “I went on vacation in Montreal with just hiking boots and double wool socks instead of buying winter boots that I’ll never use again”, and I had given away my previous hiking boots some time ago because my feet changed shape or something and they were no longer comfortable. My new boots are not as cute as my old boots, but once they were broken in (a task I foolishly did not do beforehand) they did keep my feet warm and dry more or less, with the help of double-layering socks, and the tread had pretty good grip on the ice we encountered. I could go on for several paragraphs about socks and my quiet-but-strong preferences thereof (neurodivergence yay?) and how many I’ve acquired this year and why, but that’s probably not interesting to most people, with the exception that someone from one of my choirs also gave me a lovely pair of hand-knit socks, in festive red and green, which was very nice! Continue reading →